Regional Systems of Innovations as Social Fields

The world today is subject to ambiguous, complex and mutually reinforcing global trends. The same could be said for the adaptations of social settings to these global trends. As a consequence, societies attempt to develop various increasingly sophisticated and complex systems of innovations, with all its material, social and cognitive consequences. In this article we consider systems of innovations as special type of social fields influenced by three social forces: institutions, networks and cognitive frames. Through the fuzzy-set analysis, we are examining whether these are necessary and sufficient conditions of successful adaptation to global trends via increasing innovative performance. We need a combination of at least two, but best if three, social forces to structure the social field in order to exhibit positive adaptation to global trends. This implies that the ability of social settings to meet challenges posed by global trends can indeed be a subject of rational action.